Monday, June 08, 2009

The Last Post

After 3 years and 707 posts, I've decided to discontinue Scamp.

Reasons? Partly a desire to free myself from the daily commitment of having to entertain one of the world's most demanding audiences - time-wasting creatives. And partly a decision to redeploy my spare time into something else. (Yes, I'm writing a novel. NOT set in an advertising agency).

I've learned so much doing this. That there's no such thing as unanimity of opinion in our industry. That creatives are majorly riled by work that takes its inspiration from another source (much more than Shakespeare or Picasso were!) And that HTML is bloody fiddly.

I've also learned new words, such as 'low-involvement processing', 'blogroll', and 'meh'.

There have been many highs. The tons of amazing comments and contributions from my readers. Getting a book commissioned, based on my Tuesday Tips, which comes out next year. And perhaps best of all - getting to meet so many wonderful people in the real world, through the blog.

I won't put up a list of my favourite posts, but the Top 20 that you lot seemed to enjoy the most (or be most vexed by) were:

Aren't you taking this whole Mexican Flu thing a little too seriously. Moving to the outer hebridees (with no web access) is just a little extreme don't you think. The disease isn't half as bad as people think and even people in the far Scotish islands still might bring it back from their holidays so you won't be immune.

The good news is that they are in dire need of some good creatives. When I last went there the local post office had just one solitary ad in the window which read. "Ten Sheep for sale... £300 o.n.o". Now I'm sure you could help them do something better. Good luck.

To all those asking where to go... I recommend all the blogs in the links on the right hand side of this page. If you particularly enjoy the style of this blog then the one most similar to it is probably If This Is A Blog Then What Do You Call Christmas?

One suggestion - of course we read the reasons that you have outlined for suspending the "regular" blog, perfectly understandable.

But that doesn't mean you should "close" it, what about those occasions, perhaps only every few weeks or months, when you have something that you need to publish to the world but that something won't fit elsewhere?

Those who have Scamp set up in GoogleReader or similar would still pick it up when a new one appears, you've nothing to lose(?), but perhaps just make clear that the updates are now to be even more infrequent.

I've been reading your blog for what seems like forever and have never left a comment (for various reasons) but this I have to say.

As a copywriter who came out of Watford and is now working at an agency in Mumbai, your blog was my way of staying in touch with the 'London scene'. I especially remember the CHI incident which I read first here and thought to myself, 'this is cool, it's just like being there'.

Scamp. I just want to say thanks. In my two years pounding the streets with my book, reading this blog was everything to me. I'm out of the industry now thank goodness but I'll never forget those mornings when a new Scamp post made my day. All the best with everything.

Thank you for taking the time to see my portfolio, and for your relevant comments about it. It was a piece of work by a foreigner and a stranger - and you were not obliged to do it. I will remember this.

Indeed, just like watching those re-runs of Friends for the billionth time, I'm sure many will still come to Scamp to re-read all of the great advice and witticisms to have come from it over the last 3 years. As an advertising fledgling I've found endless inspiration on this blog, something which I'm sure myself and others will take with us for a long time.

charles, surely you agree that part of what makes a blog enjoybable is the regularity of the postings. if you aren't committed, then don't do it. applies to so many things when you think about it...(gets all pensive, pours whiskey).

I've been returning every day since you posted the last post. Bugger. You really are hanging up your web thingy. Truth is, you did something here better and more valuable than the work that was discussed, praised, slagged off and more - you created real, honest to goodness debate. For once we venal agency people looked at something, daily, that wasn't our own fluff and bullshit filled navels - and you did that. So, I'd just like to say - brilliant and thank you.

All I was saying was that firstly, congrats on the D&AD digital awards, but really it was [whoops, I don't mind criticism of my work, but your point here is a wider one, which could be construed as criticism of my employer. My commenting rules don't allow this, since I consider it would be rude of me to bite the hand or allow others to bite the hand that feeds me. Your point is noted though.] Does any of this break your many rules. ;) I do love this blog by the way, for 2 and a bit years now.

Returning from holidays I read this sad & bad news on the blog. Alas, good things don't last forever.Good luck with your book, your agency work, and many thanks for the entertainment and much, much more, Scamp.Michael, Amsterdam.

Have you seen the latest cool T-Mobile ads?? Of course no, it’s super new!!

This week sees the culmination of T-Mobile’s ‘Josh’s Band’ campaign. The ad features the song ‘Come with me’, written and performed by Josh’s superband and set up using only T-Mobile’s free texts and internet for life offer.

In fact, 1107 band members were involved in the recording of the song and each one is featured on the track. What’s more, the song was released as a single by Universal Records on Monday.

The ad will air on Friday, 15th January during Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother, running for the entire ad break. And while this marks the end of the ‘Josh’s Band’ campaign, it also marks the one year anniversary of T-Mobile’s first Life’s for Sharing ad ‘Dance’, which aired in the same week and during the same show in 2009.

Check it out http://www.youtube.com/lifesforsharingAnd tell me what you think!

If you like it why don’t you embed it on your site and let your readers know about it?